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May 16, 2008
Experiment: Day Twelve
My mom had a temper. Big time. She didn't often get angry, but when she did, it was scary. Not "beat you down" scary. Just intimidating. A powerful woman suddenly less in-control than she was at every moment of every day otherwise... well, that looks terrifying to a kid.
I'm realizing--as I deal with my own issues of rage and out-of-control and temper--that the problem isn't the anger. It's the obsession with being IN control in the first place. That's what makes the wheels fall off. That is what's scary.
So, today, I pledged to take five fucking minutes out of my day--every day--and sit in the goddamn floor and just be. Stop trying to control everything. Stop trying to stifle the anger that boils up when everything is "under control." Take the phone off the hook, sit there, breathe. Just fucking be.
And it was amazingly simple.
Not easy. But simple.
As much as I loved my mother and cherish all the ways in which I am exactly like her, I do not need to fulfill her need to always have everything under control. It is not my responsibility to continue her legacy in that way. I'm not making anything better by standing on the neck of anything I can't control. It's my neck I'm standing on, by behaving that way.
Day Twelve:
I am grateful for epiphanies.
(What is the Experiment? It is this.)
Posted by bonnie at May 16, 2008 1:20 PM